A Few More Teams In The CFL?

I think the Okanagan is booming so fast that it'll have a team first after Halifax. Its about as big as vancouver, almost as beautiful and more beautiful than the rest of the country, they like their okanagan sun or whatever the teams name is, and i believe the entire okanagan together up to Vernon and South to Penticton is probably close to half a million people.

But this wouldn't happen for a long time, Victoria or Okanagan, everyone has been BC Lions fans throughout the province for a long time. The entire province really does get behind the team, i think it would be too late not after 53 years to try and bring a team in and force a name change of the Lions to vancouver and so on. But maybe one day. Victoria is out of the question just because the way Victoria is, i was born there and Victoria is so slow to do anything and they do everything they can to keep the population as small as it can possibly be, they never want Victoria to become a big city. I forget how long it was before they got a new stadium before they tore down the old one and the old one needed to go in the 80's pretty much. They lost the Cougars twice, once after winning the stanley cup in 24 and losing it to the canadiens the next season, and those cougars were bought and moved to Detroit as the Detroit cougars altho they don't recognize the Victoria Cougars stanley cup win. They lost the Victoria WHL Cougars in the 90's i think sometime to Prince George. Granted Vancouver lost their WHL team once too, and they were a great team too, the New West Bruins, so i don't know if thats an accurate comparison. They do have an ECHL team now and its the Canucks second farm team after AHL Manitoba. I just could never see Victoria wantin to build a football stadium, BC Lions already have deals bringing people in over the ferries anyways its really too close, but not as close as hamilton to toronto, i think the Island would be an ideal spot but i doubt it would happen unless they put it in Nanaimo and hoped to draw fans from Victoria i can't see it ever happening. Almost the same with the okanagan too cuz BC has a bus/tickets deal with bars throughout the okanagan, i almost got on one when i was livin in Vernon, i'm glad i'm within a 15 minute walk now tho. So i don't have to worry about that anymore.

I also think Newfoundland would be good for a 20,000 seat stadium like Montreals, they need more things to do over there anyways, and i think it would really unite the country even more, but all this would have to be after Halifax, Ottawa, and Quebec get teams. I wouldn't mind seein an 11 team league we've had 9 teams plenty of years, why not keep it odd numbered, it seems to be our way haha. Thing is i think there are a lot of Alouette fans in QUebec City and i don't know how well it would go over there, i've heard some people from Quebec say it would never work much like Victoria. But who knows, probably would've been a helluva lot better than goin to the states had we gone to those three places first.

I live in London right now, and this town is far from polarized between Toronto and Hamilton. THe CFL isn’t huge here, there’s hundreds of thousands of potential new fans, particularly among the young fans, who would probably be the most excited demographic at the possibility of an expansion team. Within a one hour drive, there’s easily around 700k people, and growing. The Mustangs are well supported, many bars and shops have put out signs in support of our team in the game this weeekend.

Besides Hamilton, the Ti-cats can draw from Niagra Falls, St. Catherines, Burlington, Oakville, Brantford etc, altogether with a population of well over a million. They are hardly hurting for a fan base, and likely wouldn’t feel any effect of a London franchise. If anything, it adds a regional rival, which in all probability would increase attendence.

In summary, i think footballmad’s Ottawa and London arguments are crap.

No stadium in Kelowna and there are so many groups here that want to squash developement its stupid. We lost the WHL here to once cause of no new arena it only took them about 20 years to finally build one. Everyone here is from other parts of the country and world I dont know how popular it would be. Also everyone old.

An expansion forum would be ideal.

That said, Ottawa's return to the league is imminent. I listened to McCown talking to Cohon. He tried to coax something out of him, but Cohon said it would be weeks after the Grey Cup before an annoucement would be made. The team wouldn't begin play until renovations at Frank Clair were finished so it sounds like 2009 or 2010.